Charles Thompson
CHARLES THOMPSON graduated from UCLA in 1969 and temporarily took a middle school teaching job until his writing career kicked in. Thirty happy middle-school years later, he is finally catching up to that other vocation with an account of his grandparents and of Compton, the Southern California town in which they lived. "Grandpa and the Petrified Oysters" is the first chapter in a book of stories about his childhood and family.